MINNEAPOLIS — Mandolinist Chris Thile of the band Punch Brothers says hosting “A Prairie Home Companion” is like “getting to be Luke Skywalker.”
Thile substituted for “Prairie Home” host and creator Garrison Keillor on the public radio show Saturday and will do so again Feb. 14 from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“It’s an incredible honor. It’s a bone-chilling honor, like, a blood-curdling one,” Thile, 33, told The Associated Press on Thursday, comparing it to trading shoes with the “Star Wars” protagonist.
A longtime “Prairie Home” fan, Thile was 15 when he made his first appearance on the show in 1996. He estimates he’s made 14 or 15 visits total. His Nickel Creek bandmate, singer and fiddler Sara Watkins, hosted in 2011.
Thile said Keillor told him to “just talk to the people. People love to be talked to.”
Keillor, 72, is on a West Coast tour of his one-man show and says he’s looking forward to listening to “Prairie Home” live for the first time in its 40-year history.
“A Prairie Home Companion” is heard on more than 600 public radio stations across the U.S. and has a weekly audience of nearly 4 million listeners.
— Jeff Baenen, Associated Press
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